While Americans continue to dissect the election ramifications and how our nation seems hopelessly divided, the world remains a dangerous place.

Two Iranian fighter jets fired on an unarmed U.S. Air Force Predator drone in the Persian Gulf last week, CNN reported. The incident raises new concerns in President Obama’s administration about Iranian military aggression in crucial oil shipping lanes.

Iran’s official news agency says that country’s military will hold “massive” air defense maneuvers, starting this weekend, according to Fox News.

The BBC reported Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has said he is ready to order a strike on Iran if international sanctions do not stop its nuclear program.

In addition to the deaths and unrest in Syria, Libya and other Middle Eastern hot spots, these events should indicate that the U.S. needs to maintain a well-trained, equipped and funded military.

And it increases the significance of Monday, Nov. 12, when Beeville will conduct its annual Veterans Day ceremony at Veterans Memorial Stadium, starting at 11 a.m.

Sponsored by the Beeville Garden Club, this year’s event will feature speaker Marine Chief Warrant Officer John Schneider, along with the presentation of colors, placing of memorial wreaths by veterans groups, a 21-gun salute and playing of taps. Kay Past will serve as master of ceremonies.

We encourage young and old alike to attend and learn “What does it mean to be a veteran?” – the theme of Schneider’s keynote speech.

In addition, on Saturday, the Bee County American Legion Ladies Auxiliary will offer poppies to the community at Walmart from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Poppies also will be available at the Veterans Day program on Monday.

American Legion poppies are assembled primarily by disabled veterans, and the proceeds from the fund-raising campaign are used exclusively for the benefit of disabled and needy veterans and the widows and orphans of deceased veterans.

So, do your part to show your support and appreciation to these veterans in our community.

And yes, Chuck Norris's wife said there would be a thousand years of darkness...boo hoo. Turn off the TV and take a good look around, Beeville and all of South Texas is booming. I don't see the darkness and gloom some are providing. Not unless all of ya'll have just given up. In that case, please move on out of the way. We got things that need doing.

This is a nicely-stated summary, similar to my own reaction to the election results. And your comments parallel my thoughts.

The political pundits who revel in analyzing the downfall of the two-party system in general and the Republican party in particular have correctly appraised the outcome as evidence that our nation has undergone considerable change over time. If they only realized they were victims of that change and not just observers!

The Socialist machine, with a glib and articulate Obama as its sales rep, was able to win this critical election by targeting sub-sets of our society: women, Latinos, African-Americans, and youth. And the rest of us—those who understand what made this nation great, who thought enough of it to be willing to offer our lives to protect it, and who have the wisdom to turn it around—are now in the minority. More conservatives than ever went to the polls on November 6th. Yet they were outnumbered by those whose special interests were at odds with the economic well-being of the country—and who threaten the very resource that has enabled all of the benefits we’ve allowed to be thought of as “rights” rather than the privileges they really are. These are the people short-sighted enough to believe that serving the goose that lays the golden eggs for dinner is the best way to satisfy their appetites.

Let’s face it, though. The fault is largely ours. The singular difference between the new majority and the new minority has been just that wisdom we claim to possess. So we need to own up to the fact that, for the past several generations, we have been so complacent, contented, busy…and lazy, that we have failed to go to the trouble of keeping it alive and passing it on. It was my generation that, reveling in the post-WWII euphoria, failed to imbue in our kids the values that should have prevented the moral decay of the ‘60s from becoming the folklore of the land. “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Conscience of a Conservative” should have been required reading in our schools and the topic of family dinner conversations. But many of us didn’t even insist that the family stay together for dinner!

We lament that our grandkids will have to bear the brunt of the decay and decline of our once-exceptional nation. But was it not we who justified our failure to teach our offspring the rudiments of financial literacy with the excuse that “we don’t want our kids to have to go through what we had to go through”?

Hell, our values have been shaped by what we went through. And the best gift we might have given our offspring was the opportunity to do for themselves, to cope with the trials of the world out there, and to enjoy the self-esteem that doing so earns them. It’s too bad we have largely deprived them of this joy in the interest of protecting them.

Was it not our generation (or at least the one we mentored) that made it “uncool” for kids to have to learn to work for their livings and that found it necessary to compete with the Joneses next door to give them more? Or to even understand the foundation of our monetary system? Should we not have taught them that money was not gold or silver but was only a token received for the creation of things or performance of services of value to others. And that, through the convenience of such coin, others could pass on to them the value of what they had given to yet others in turn? Or how about this simple lesson: that you make money from the value of what you produce and not from the effort you expend if you produce nothing of value?

What will be the eventual outcome? Living in a fascist state—under Sharia perhaps? It’s not difficult to extrapolate the fallout and make a case for that kind of future. History is replete with the observations of scholars—that we have passed the normal life span for democracies (about 200 years), which seem inevitably to perish as soon as the majority discovers they can take what they want from the productive minority.

I can only be selfishly grateful that my status as an octogenarian will probably spare me most of the pain that this misguided majority has brought down upon us—and grateful, too, that I’m old enough to remember how good it was back in the day.

I suppose that the dust will settle in a while, and I’ll again begin to rely upon my blessings to dominate my daily thought. Certainly the simple things like health, family and friends should be enough to pull me out of this funk. Thanksgiving is not far off. But it’s not quite so easy to invoke the sagacity of Pollyanna as it once was.